by Nina Post
She felt a presence behind her, someone about to get elbowed in the gut for standing too close. She looked over her shoulder at a handsome man.
“Out of all the Gorgon-run donut shops in Pothole City,” he said.
Af did have his scheduled lunch, but he also had found a way to leave Amenity Tower without having to pay that obnoxious Ferryman for his services, and maybe a way to leave Amenity Tower for good.
He had exhaustively studied the apocryphal lore available through his expensive online database subscription, and found one shiny bauble of information: He could change his vessel.
After a picosecond of deliberation, Af changed his vessel to one that another angel was using. Based on the lore, the other vessel would retain its original restrictions. So as long as Af borrowed the vessel from an angel free to come and go from Amenity Tower, he would be able to as well.
By changing vessels, Af could walk right out the front door and never look back.
The not-coming-back part didn’t sound tempting when he thought of Kelly. But Kelly thought he was regimented and complacent, and she seemed to―no, she definitely didn’t like that. And it was perfectly reasonable she wouldn’t want him in his original angel of destruction form, considering he was a massive creature with horns and huge claws.
But she didn’t want his current vessel, either, which compared favorably to people he saw on the television. Obviously, she was too focused on work and the SPs to think about a relationship. Or maybe she just wasn’t attracted to him, because every time he saw her, she acted like she couldn’t wait to get away from him.
His only recourse was to try it out and see how that fared.
Several minutes later, after following the directions he had printed out, Af found himself in his new vessel. He felt about the same height.
He leaned over to check himself out in the reflective lid of his waffle maker, polished that morning to a brilliant sheen. Rough-and-tumble, like a pirate. Dark hair, enough to run your hands through, which he did.
To get a more clear image he moved over to the even shinier screen on his automated breakfast machine, with cereal-and-milk dispenser, egg poacher, toaster, and bacon heater.
Intense dark eyes, thin sardonic lips, permanent five o’clock shadow, sharp angles. Maybe now he would find out if his usual vessel wasn’t Kelly’s type.
He grinned. Time to play.
“Out of all the Gorgon-run donut shops in Pothole City.”
Kelly turned, luminous blonde hair sweeping her shoulders, eerie gray eyes narrowing as she looked him up and down. “The costume designer for Mickey Rourke in The Pope of Greenwich Village wants her clothes back.”
Af’s mind raced. What did that mean? What did he say now? He glanced down. He looked like the Pope? Wasn’t that bad? Get it together. Say something.
“I’ve seen you around,” he said. Oh no, that was bad. Mayday, mayday!
She tilted her head and waited for him to say something more clever.
He decided to appeal to her need for recognition. “You’re legendary.”
Her eyes brightened and a smile curved on her face. Bingo. “You think so?”
Better. But he was treading dangerous ground. Kelly had been sensitive about having to stick with her actual identity and a steady job for weeks now. If he reminded her of that, she could turn hostile. Or if she felt more sad than hostile, she could disengage, regardless of how damn handsome he happened to be.
He wanted to say something extremely risky, and sound as dangerously sexy as possible. “Weren’t you the one who found the Mennonite Butler? Very impressive.”
Kelly had found the Butler, which she was proud of, but she also lost the credit and accolades for the job to a vampire huntress, a sore spot. It could go either way for him.
“Thanks.” She beamed.
He attributed her good mood to the donuts and the ambiance of the shop.
Then she said something that simultaneously dismayed and pleased him.
“Weren’t you the one who found the Mennonite Butler?” the mysterious, recklessly handsome man asked, his voice suggestively rumbly. He was hot, but he was no Af. “Very impressive.”
A reminder of the Mennonite Butler job, a werewolf she tracked down doing chores on a Mennonite farm, wasn’t welcome. It was her most recent success that was also now a long time ago, and when things started taking a downward slide.
But she wanted to make an effort to look on the brighter side of things, instead of wallowing in the dark, a new tactic that she would forget about doing in a few days, like exercise.
“Thanks!” Suck it up, she told herself. She got tired of turning that job over and over in her mind, like a coal she worried into a diamond. She had to try to at least inch forward.
“Would you be interested in going to dinner with me?” she asked the dark-and-handsome whatever-he-was whom she had met mere seconds ago. “I can get us a reservation at Ferris.”
Ferris was the hottest restaurant in Pothole City―also the only one, if you didn’t count the Amenity Tower automat, the German restaurant several blocks away, and the two donut shop chains. The restaurant revolved on a giant ferris wheel the mayor had installed with tax-increment financing to boost the morale of the city.
And good luck getting reservations; cars were booked months in advance. Every locust and cockatrice and fallen angel (out on a loophole or not) in Pothole City wanted to eat there.
“I would be very interested.” He smiled like she was already his.
elly settled into Mr. Black’s capacious, brass-riveted swivel chair. The air in the seat compressed and made a whiff sound. She opened her laptop.
Kermit, an angel in charge of the three o’clock a.m. hour, sat knees-up in a corner chair. Dark feathered hair brushed his face under a 1950s-era racing helmet as he hunched over a handheld Cluck Snack game, a prize he received in the mail from sending in a postcard with his mailing address and favorite Cluck Snack product (Cluck Snack Steamie Pocketz).
Other SPs came in―Rochel, the serious-looking angel in charge of finding lost objects, Morris, the curly-haired angel in charge of HVAC systems, and Firiel, the wide-eyed angel in charge of the protection of fungi. They brought in their sticker books and persuaded Kermit to trade on the floor with them.
Kelly started with the basics to find the missing president of Clucking Along Holdings.
CAH was a private company, so there were no public documents―quarterly and annual reports, earnings call transcripts―to refer to. She went to the state records and found CAH’s articles of incorporation. She looked at the board of directors section, copied the residence address listed for Archie Driscoll, and ran a few more searches.
Firiel padded over to the desk and brought her a Cluck Snack Drinkable Cake Flav’r Pudd’n 2-Pack (“Not for Hamsters or Dogs”), split to share. She toasted Firiel and they both drank theirs with mini-straws.
After more extensive digging, she found only one other address for the missing president, listed under a donation Archie made to the mayor’s election campaign―again under the guise of AKA, LLC―which corresponded to a private residence on the outskirts of Pothole City.
She cross-checked that address and found a few magazine subscriptions: Public Restroom Designer, Airport and School Dreams Journal, and Pothole City Birder. Whoever he was, she liked him already, pending further data, because she had a lot of dreams set in airports and college campuses.
On the County Assessor’s site, she checked the address from the articles of incorporation to see who owned the property. The address matched up with a real estate office in Pothole City, and served as the address of record for a company named AKA, LLC.
She also checked the address of the private residence, owned by a Tecumseh Creed.
No mortgages or any other transactions were listed under Archibald Driscoll, only the LLC. His utility bills, including cable, his medical and insurance bills, and his financial statements, went to a third address under the same LLC.
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br /> He had a Cook Island driver’s license, and received a law degree from a school on the Northern Mariana Islands.
“Wily, isn’t he?” she muttered. Nothing she couldn’t handle. And she wouldn’t stop looking for this one until she knew for sure they had no connection, which she presumed was the case.
She called Tecumseh Creed, owner of the private residence on the outskirts of Pothole City. Mr. Black’s phone had a hilarious add-on, a plastic stand that rested on your shoulder and allowed you to keep your phone to your ear hands-free.
“What the hell is it?” The hoarse voice on the other end sounded like a wall-mounted manual pencil sharpener.
Kelly got an image of a woman driving a huge John Deere tractor, twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun propped on her shoulder, spitting out a wad of chew.
“I’m calling for Archie Driscoll.”
“Ain’t no men here. Fed up with ‘em. Always think they know better’n you.”
“Archie is―”
“That’s a man’s name. Man comes by here, I shoo’m off my land.”
Kelly wasn’t sure if the woman said shoo or shoot, and supposed both applied.
“They do two, maybe three things ‘round the house,” the woman said, “‘spect you do everything else, and lord over those two things like they deserve a No-bel prize. Like they are edifyin’ our gender with special man tricks only men know.”
“But Archie Driscoll’s address is there,” Kelly said. “He receives Pothole City Birder magazine there.”
A pause, heavy with impatience. “Is his name Tecumseh Creed?”
“Ah, no.”
“Didn’t think so. That’s me and I’m the only one here. Now if you’ll ‘scuse me, I got an Eddie Money song in my head I’m just gonna to have to sleep off.” Tecumseh hung up, possibly by throwing the receiver on the base.
Kelly leaned back in the chair. Kermit crossed the room with his loping gait and put his sketchpad on the desk. He drew a motorcycle with a sidecar, and an arrow leading from that to a tractor.
“You think I should go there?”
He nodded.
“To Tecumseh’s?”
He nodded.
“With a sidecar motorbike?”
He nodded, and she shrugged. “Murray requisitioned vehicles for me, and he’s indefinitely bound to a hell lodge. So I’ll have to get a vehicle some other way.” She called the real estate office that went with the first address.
“Bingo Polychronopoulos Realty.”
More straightforward than Tecumseh Creed; a good start. Well, except for the name.
“I’m looking for Archie Driscoll. Do you know him?”
Silence.
“I’m his daughter.” She had no idea if she was Archie Driscoll’s daughter, or if he was even related to her. But she may as well try.
“There’s no one by that name here, but if someone else has heard of him, I’ll give them the message,” the man on the other line said. “Just in case.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
She hung up and called Hamlet Gonzalez, the CAH representative who had contacted SSI, and asked, “Does Archie Driscoll live near you?”
Hamlet sounded sheepish. “I’ve never actually been to his house, and I’ve only seen him a few times. He always met me at a diner or the office, even though he says I’m the only one he trusts. Makes you wonder how he treats the people he doesn’t trust.”
“Which diner?”
“Eggcentricities, next to the office. But it’s a pile of rubble now.”
If Hamlet were in Archie Driscoll’s trusted inner circle, maybe Archie should reevaluate that decision, because if Kelly had a trusted inner circle, and any one of them reacted to questions about her with anything but glacier-cold stonewalling, they wouldn’t be in that circle long.
But Archie and Hamlet both worked for the same company, and had the same health, dental, and vision provider, so there could be a chance that Archie went to at least one of the same in-network doctors as Hamlet.
“I want the names of every medical professional you go to,” she said. “Doctor, dentist, optometrist, dermatologist, chiropractor, vet―anything. I also want Archie’s social security number, if you have it, and any info you have for his parents or immediate family. Mother’s name, ideally, with her maiden name.”
“Uh, sure. I can probably get some of those. Hold on.”
She moved the receiver under her chin and watched the SPs while she waited. They had traded their Cluck Snack stickers and the small plastic chicken toys that came inside the cereal boxes and switched to running around in the central office area.
Rochel put one of the chicken toys on the desk, turned a knob under its wing, and let out an excited murmur when the chicken laid a small plastic egg.
Hamlet returned to the phone and gave her everything but the info on Archie’s family. “I don’t have anything at all about his mother or anyone else. If I come up with anything, I’ll call you back.”
Next, Kelly called the GP’s office on the list. The dentist would be last, if she didn’t get anywhere with the GP. She hated dentist’s offices, as a general rule―especially since battling a hygienist who turned into a full-demon mite-monster. Kelly shuddered at the memory of it.
And it made her think of Af reaching a boiling point over being human and reveerting to his awe-inspiring angel of destruction form. Not that she blamed him. Most of the time, she focused on her goals (not that she’d been great with that lately), which effectively blocked her emotions. But if she could change into that form, too, she’d be tempted multiple times a day.
She thought she and Af might be similar in how they avoided or deflected negative feelings. Af was usually so calm and even-keeled, but saved up his repressed rage at the offenses of condo life and a human vessel until he had to change form.
A lackadaisical woman finally answered―Kelly had forgotten the phone stand on her shoulder was still there―and identified herself as office manager.
“I’m processing insurance forms for Archibald Driscoll,” Kelly said. “Could you pull Mr. Driscoll’s file to check the date and insurance codes of the previous appointment?”
The office manager asked for his social security number, which she happened to have, thanks to Hamlet, and told her to hold while she pulled that file. She did a brief fist-pump. Rochel watched her from just outside the door and did one, too. Then he taught it to Firiel.
The office manager got back on the phone and confirmed Archie Driscoll came in for his annual checkup two months ago.
“Can you give me the the insurance codes so I can have those for my records?” In her pretext calls, she’d found that people were more likely to tell her something if she gave them a reason for it, no matter how lame that reason was.
The office manager grumbled a little but gave her the codes.
“Any follow-up treatment or prescriptions?”
“Yes, Mr. Driscoll renewed his prescription for a mild anti-anxiety medication.” She gave Kelly the brand name.
“Could you confirm the name of the pharmacy?” Kelly wasn’t concerned if her request sounded unusual. Insurance companies―hell, most companies, especially the large ones―tended to be so arbitrary that even if her request for the pharmacy were unusual, the other person would shrug it off. You had to do pretext calls with complete confidence. But the office manager gave her the pharmacy name and number.
Rochel, Firiel, Morris, and Dave showed up at the office door and did fist pumps in the air like a small group of pajama-clad metalheads.
Finally, Kelly asked the office manager for one more thing: if Mr. Driscoll listed Hamlet Gonzalez as his emergency contact at the number she had.
“No, Mr. Driscoll has named an ‘M. Gorgon’ his emergency contact.”
Kelly asked for that number, thanked her, and hung up. M. Gorgon. That had to be Medusa, the founder of Pothole City Donuts. But why would she be Archie Driscoll’s emergency contact?
Maybe it was that Potho
le City Donuts was his home away from home, but it would have had to be a previous location, because PCD hadn’t been in the Amenity Tower location long enough.
The all-fallen-angel board of Amenity Tower held a special lunch meeting in the club room on the first floor.
“Where’s Raum?” Crocell lounged on the sofa in front of the huge LCD screen and flipped through the channels.
“Late, as usual.” Vassago had his reading glasses on to read an old issue of Lodge & Camp magazine.
At a knock on the door, which could only be opened with a security fob, Imamiah let in the cockatrice caterer, carrying a large insulated cooler bag.
The cockatrice nodded curtly, waddled to the large table in the room adjacent to the TV room, unzipped the coolers, and swiftly removed a dozen sandwiches, sides, and drinks. Imamiah paid him and the cockatrice left.
“I can’t stay here all day.” Forcas opened his laptop to a futures trading platform and got to typing at a furious pace. “Construction equipment and coffee are going nuts.”
“Why does he want to meet, anyway?” Crocell asked from the sofa without taking his eyes off the Pothole City Death Worm Exhibition (“Only Two Steps to Nationals!”) at the Pothole City Convention Center, a building that had been erected in a mere seventeen days.
“I’d like to take Frank to that next year and win that trophy,” Crocell muttered before raising his voice. “I don’t know if you guys know this, but I won a trophy from the Community Committee for Most Magazines Donated to Fitness Center. Pretty cool, huh? Frank broke it, though.”
Vassago pushed his glasses above his nose and looked more closely at an ad in the back of the magazine. “You know Raum. He probably has some big announcement. He loves those.”
Raum strode into the club room with a face-crinkling smile, hands outstretched as if to be fêted at a white-tie dinner. “Friends! I have an exciting announcement!”
“See?” Vassago said to Crocell, who jotted down ideas for grooming his death worm, Frank.
Raum clasped his hands behind his back. “The Angel of the Bottomless Pit, aka the Avenging Angel of the Apocalypse, aka Don, has given us a special task.”